the workshop, for the home, for the church. All this is a duty which we owe to the colored as to our brothers; which we owe to them for the centuries of injustice which they have suffered; which we owe to them as the citizens of the country. If we are wise, we shall educate them rather than leave them in ignorance and dependence; if we are wise, we shall educate them rather than leave them for the Pope to educate and to own; if we are wise, we shall educate them that they may not be the prey and the tool of infamous and unscrupulous politicians."

What R. S. MacArthur, D.D., says:

"In Apostle Paul's magnificent sermon on Mars Hill, he teaches us that God made of one blood all nations of men. Biblical scholarship, it is safe to affirm, will never again deny the humanity of the negro, and never again strive to place him outside the human family. It is a fact comparatively little known that Romanism is responsible for African slavery. This fact ought to be proclaimed. Once

more Romanism is trying to enslave the negro. It would put on his soul the chains of ignorance and superstition; it would make him tenfold more the child of superstition, tradition, and hoodooism. Every instinct of patriotism, every command of a pure Christianity, and every Baptist obligation call upon us to save the negro from the bondage of Romanism."

What M. MacVicar, LL.D., says:

"It should be taken for granted that the educational development of the physical, intellectual, moral and spiritual nature of the negro is subject to and follows precisely the same laws as in the case of the white man. Hence every rightly directed and successful effort to educate and elevate the negro should be based upon the fact that he acquires exactly in the same way as the white man the right use of language, the power of clear thinking, of exact reasoning, of making broad generalizations, of forming practical judgment, of business tact and sagacity, of appreciating moral and spiritual truth, and of applying the knowledge and habits acquired to his daily life."

What H. L. Morehouse, D.D., says:

"We have believed in the thorough humanity of the black man, with divine endowment of all the faculties of the white man; capable of culture, capable of high attainments under proper conditions and with sufficient time; a being not predestined to be simply a hewer of wood and drawer of water for the white race, foreordained to irrevocable and everlasting inferiority-but a man, whose mind and soul may expand indefinitely to comprehend the great things of God and to take a useful and honorable place in the world's activities."

Richmond, Va.

My Dear Bro.:-1 am requested by the Ministers' Conference of our city to communicate to you their thanks for the leaflets "Man or Baboon?" which they will place in

the hands of the reading and leading members of their churches. We are confident that much good will come to our people from the reading of the leaflets. Every effort is being made here by the Roman Catholics to establish themselves permanently among our people. One most deceitful argument put forth by them is: "Well, there is not much difference as to denominations so far as relates to saving faith, therefore let your children come to our schools and to our church and we will give them clothes, shoes," etc., etc.

I wish to send you my personal thanks. Very respectfully, W. F. GRAHAM.

SALIENT POINTS IN HOME MISSIONS.

BY T. J. MORGAN, D.D.

The American Baptist Home Mission Society has thrust upon it in these days a great responsibility, and has offered to it a magnificent opportunity. Our work is continental, embracing, with one exception, every State and Territory in the Union, besides portions of Canada and all the Republic of Mexico. Behind us are sixty-four years of wise planning, effective administration, zealous labor in the field, and very gratifying results. Seed-sowing has been quickly followed by abundant harvesting. Slowly and steadily, as the experience of passing years warranted it, the organization of the Society has been rendered more and more complete, and to-day it is probably not excelled by any similar missionary body. The organization is instinct with life at every point. It is prepared to-day, as never before, to prosecute with vigor and success its complex missionary and educational work. We are, however, confronted at the present time with the widely prevailing financial stringency and business uncertainty. The panic of 1893, while it has spent its force, and has passed its most acute stage, still lingers, and is working its direful disasters. Multitudes of individuals, who heretofore have been among the steady, liberal contributors to the treasury of the Home Mission Society, now find themselves, by stress of loss, unable longer to maintain the standard of their accustomed liberality. But two months now remain before the close of the fiscal year, March 31st, 1896; and unless the contributions of churches and individuals con

siderably exceed those for the same period last year, the Society will be confronted with a debt of from $50,000 to $75,000.

An effect of the hard times through which we are passing is the impoverishment of many churches, rendering it difficult, if not impossible, for them, without outside help, to meet their obligations. As was very natural and proper, perhaps, many churches during the days of financial prosperity enlarged their borders by building houses of worship suitable for their immediate and prospective needs, and assumed obligations which they confidently expected to be able to meet without serious embarrassment. In many cases, however, the panic of 1893 has so disarranged their plans that they find themselves to-day being crushed by the burden of an unmanageable debt. To lose their houses of worship under mortgage foreclosure and sale, or to close their services by reason of inability to support their pastors, would mean, in many cases, the loss of what had been gained by a long series of years of toil and sacrifice, the loss of prestige, disintegration, discouragement, disaster, and, possibly, death.

In taking a wide survey of the whole field, and attempting to determine, in the light of all the present facts, what the special obligations of the Home Mission Society are, its officers are striving to do these things:

1. To preserve the morale of its working force. An advancing army, going from victory to victory, is always hopeful, while a retreating army, retiring in the face of the enemy, or even forced into inactivity, easily becomes demoralized, and is liable to be sticken with panic if suddenly assailed by the enemy in superior force. A wise general looks to the morale of his troops. The Home Mission Society has thus far avoided all sudden, violent retrenchment in its work, and has succeeded in maintaining everywhere on its field a spirit of confidence and courage and hopefulness.

2. Rescue work. Wherever it has been possible for it to do so, the Society has extended a helping hand to important churches in strategic positions, whose overthrow would be a denominational calamity. By timely succor it has been enabled recently to rescue from peril the First Baptist Church in Cheyenne, the capital of Wyoming, and the Emmanuel Church in San Francisco, which, in some

respects, is the most important and the most imperiled interest we have on the Pacific Coast. By its intervention it has just been able to extend such financial aid to one of the most important Western churches, in a State capital, as will save it from the peril of foreclosure and enable it to go on with its vastly important work. These are but sample instances of the rescue work which the Society is doing on a large scale, the fruits of which will be apparent for a century to come. It is oftentimes vastly more important to save a church than it is to found half a dozen new ones.

3. Encouragement. In times like those through which we are now passing, churches easily become discouraged, especially if left alone to struggle with apparently insurmountable obstacles. At such times, the presence among them of the agent of the Home Mission Society, strong, courageous and hopeful himself, bringing to them the aid and the more valuable counsel and sympathy of the denomination, proves to be just the tonic needed, and the impulse re. quired to save them from disheartenment and to stimulate them to further endeavor. The record of this all-important service now being rendered to the denomination by the Home Mission Society never will be written.

4. Strengthening. The Society is giving a great deal of time and thought to the work of strengthening the things that re main. One of the most important denominational movements of the century is now quietly in progress. After a long and pain. ful deliberation, the plan has been adopted by virtue of which the four million Baptists of this country, white and black, North and South, ignoring traditions, divisions and strifes, and putting behind them all prejudice, are uniting in the systematic, carefully wrought out plan of co-operation in behalf of missionary and educational work among the eight million Negroes of the South. The far-reaching consequences of this plan, if successfully carried into operation, can scarcely be measured. It means unity, efficiency, enlargement, advance

ment.

Scarcely inferior to this in importance is the work now in progress looking to the improvement of the educational work in the South. Reorganization, readjustment, improvement, is the watchword. I cannot go into detail, but must content myself with

of the Society is receiving more careful attention than this. When the plans now in process of completion are carried out, as they will be, these schools in the South will be found far more efficient for the accomplishment of the tremendous work God has laid upon them than they have ever been in the past.

5. Advancement. It is often true in military campaigns that the most successful defense is an advance movement; so it is in missions. While the Home Mission Society has strenuously refrained from undertaking advance work, however urgent, which would involve any considerable increase of expenditure, and while it will continue this policy until the present hard times have passed by, so as to avoid throwing a needless burden upon the churches, it has been constrained by the providence of God, as it believes, to make such slight advance in its work as it could safely do, at points where to fail to advance would be to retreat. In view of the vast incoming tide of CanadianFrench Roman Catholicism, threatening to transform New England into New France, the Society has been considering with great care the question of strengthening its work among these interesting peopie. For many years it has been engaged in training at Newton a body of missionaries, and has, in co-operation with the various State conventions of New England, pushed its work wherever there seemed a providential opening. It is now gradually extending this work, and just so far as the churches will respond to its appeal for money, will it be ready to employ new missionaries, occupy new fields, adopt new methods and increase its vigor in a work which sustains most vital relations to the future welfare of our denomination and of Protestantism.

Scarcely less important than the work among the French is the work that ought to be undertaken among the Italians. These people are coming to us by the million, and they are coming to stay. They bring their families, become Americans, and will constitute a constantly increasing factor in our national life. They are industrious, hardy, thrifty, and are accessible to the Gospel. The work already attempted among them has been phenomenally successful; and there is every reason why, as soon as times

will warrant it, we should enter upon this

tempting to do at present, however, is in the way of preparation and of prosecution in two or three important centers.

We have now entered upon the last five years-a semi-decade-of the nineteenth century, and the twentieth century is at our doors. As far as human foresight can penetrate, these five years are to be full of momentous issues. We shall, in all probability, enjoy a return of financial prosperity. Flood tides of immigration will empty upon us millions of foreigners from almost all parts of the habitable globe, and all the forces that enter into the development of our national life will be intensified. It will be a period of unexampled activity and unrest-intellectual, industrial, political, social and religious. The circumstances of these closing years of the century call on the Christian Church, as never before, for renewed energy in the prosecution of its missionary enterprises. What is to be done for America ought to be done now.

In view of the past history of the Society, of the work it has already accomplished, of the urgency of the responsibilities that now rest upon it, and of the magnificent opportunity presented to it, the Society is planning for a vigorous campaign that shall fitly close the century. Five years is all too short a time in which to accomplish what the present situation calls upon it to undertake; but there seems a special fitness that the next five years should carry the work of the Society much farther than it has ever yet advanced, so that it may enter upon the twentieth century with all the advantages that will come to it from a great and concerted forward movement. The Society, therefore, appeals earnestly to all its former friends and patrons, to all who sympathize with the truth of the Gospel as held and proclaimed by the Baptists, to all who love the principles of Protestantism and desire their triumph on this continent, to all who love our country and believe that its future progress, welfare and world-wide influence will be increased by the prevalence of a vital Christianity throughout all its borders, to unite with them, joining its ranks, marching under its banners, the Cross, and the flag, in this its greatest campaign. Let us thus close the century by a vigorous, onward movement, looking towards the final conquest of the continent for Christ.-The Watchman.

MISSIONARY DEPARTMENT.

REV. FRANK PETERSON.

THE SWEDES IN AMERICA.

BY REV. FRANK PETERSON, MINNEAPOLIS. So much has been said and written against the foreigner of late, that it seemed a happy relief to hear the kind expressions about them by Gen T. J. Morgan while on his late visit among us. And the other day I could hardly believe my own eyes when I read in "The Church at Home and Abroad," the following from Dr. W. G. Puddefoot: "One of God's greatest gifts to this New World is the foreigner. Take your map and find those States which the stream of immigration has passed by, and in every case you find them behind the times. Hamilton, of whom it was said, 'the greatest man this country had produced,' was an immigrant. Albert Gallatin, the financier; Agassiz, the scientist, and thousands of illustrious names, would make a strong list. One-twelfth of the land foreigners, but one-fourth of the Union armies were foreigners, too-one-twelfth furnished one-fourth. Men fought for the Union who knew no language but Old Glory." To this last fact I can add my own personal testimony. In my own company there were quite a few who could scarcely un

derstand the language, but who endured the march, handled their guns, and stood cool and brave before the cannon's mouth, in a manner well befitting true sons of Mars.

An Honorable History.

As to the Swedes, their traditions point to events as honorable as those of any country. The part they have played upon the world's stage has been well carried out. Their keels ploughed the trackless ocean before others even dared to leave the sight of land. They set foot upon American soil five hundred years before ever an English word was spoken in the New World. Their spirit of independence has asserted and maintained itself throughout the ages. Their kings and subjects have crossed seas, fought battles, waded through blood, and given their lives for religious liberty. They believe in God, the Bible, and the Sabbath.

Romanism finds no quarters with them. Sweden threw off the Catholic yoke more than three hundred and fifty years ago; and she did it, too, so effectually that nothing but the crumbling ruins of Jesuit monasteries remain to show that this usurping dragon had ever switched its slimy tail upon her shores. No country in Europe is so thoroughly Protestant as is Sweden, and no foreigners have ever passed through Castle Garden who are more free from the taint of Romanism than are the immigrants from Sweden and Norway.

Their share in the past and present history of this country, I am glad to say, is also an honorable one. The first colony arrived April, 1638, one year before Roger Williams founded the Baptist Church at Providence. Having purchased from the Indians a tract of land, embracing nearly the whole of the present State of Delaware, as well as a goodly portion of Pennsylvania, they settled down on the west bank of Delaware Bay, and called it New Sweden.

It was they who, forty-four years afterwards, received William Penn upon his first arrival on these shores, and who acted as his interpreters to the Indians. Hon. W. W, Thomas, United States Minister to Sweden, says: "Penn acquired land of the Indians by purchase precisely as the Swedes had done before him. I would not pluck a single leaf from the laurels with which America has crowned the great Quaker,